Application of nucleating agents is the most versatile and industrially applied way to manipulate the crystalline structure of isotactic polypropylene (iPP). Various materials possess a nucleating effect, but from the viewpoint of dispersibility, the partially soluble ones are the most advantageous. Our objective was to synthesize new N , N ′-dicyclohexyldicarboxamide homologues and study their applicability as nucleating agents in iPP. Carbon-13 nuclear magnetic resonance ( 13 C NMR) and infrared spectroscopy were used to prove that the synthesis reactions were successful. Thermal stability of the compounds was investigated with simultaneous thermal analysis. Nucleating efficiency and solubility were characterized by polarized light microscopy and differential scanning calorimetry. Polarized light microscopy was also applied to study the effect of novel additives on the morphology of iPP. The properties, important from the viewpoint of applicability, were also investigated. Tensile tests were performed to characterize the main mechanical properties, and standard haze measurements were performed to characterize optical properties. It can be concluded that the investigated compounds are partially soluble nucleating agents and influence the crystalline structure of iPP. Most of the studied compounds have a moderate nucleating efficiency, but a very interesting dendritic structure develops in their presence. Two of them proved to be non-selective β-nucleating agents, which result in a remarkable improvement of impact resistance and higher opacity.
Nucleation efficiency and the special supermolecular structure formed in the presence of novel nucleating agents, N,N′-dicyclohexylsuberoylamide and N,N′-dicyclohexylsebacoylamide are presented in this work. The nucleation effect is studied in isotactic polypropylene (iPP). The melting and crystallization processes as well as the polymorphic composition are studied using calorimetric and thermo-optical techniques, while the solubility of the nucleating agents is studied by rheology. The properties of the iPP products nucleated by the novel compounds are characterized by conventional tensile and impact tests and the optical properties are measured by standardized haze measurements. The results indicated clearly that the studied nucleating agents are partially soluble in the iPP melt and possess dual nucleating ability. The formation of β-phase is evidenced by the calorimetric and thermo-optical measurements. The morphology of the nucleated samples shows similarity to iPP nucleated by well-known soluble “organogelators”; however, the nucleating agents introduced in this work are the first “organogelators” with β-nucleating efficiency.
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